Monday, March 24, 2008

Just found out and wanted to report to you all that I am in 29th place for the "Being a Bigger Loser Than Marko" contest. I'm pretty pumped since there were over 175'something that have been participating.

I've not lost as much as I would of hoped at this point, but I'm down 20+ and still keeping it off. I've made a big adjustment to diet this week so hopefully we'll see more results next week.

Anyways, I'm pumped that at least in the running for doing fairly well out of 175 participants. Thanks for the support!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Here are some things you might be interested in knowing since it started:

Those who are in the contest have lost over 1,370.9 pounds!

Marko is in 2nd place!

Dj isn't in the top 10.

But Dj has lost 20 pounds!

So continue to pray for me, it is greatly appreciated. I'm continuing to eat good food and exercise everyday. I've even found that I can effectively cheat and still maintain my diet. It was unfortunate that we ordered Girl Scout cookies a couple weeks before I knew about the contest and they have since arrived. Since I have to eat about 6 times a day I've limited myself to 2 a day and I've found that I don't even take advantage of them every day. Look at it this way, I can have 2 cookies for 160 calories, or I can have a large apple for 120 calories. I usually choose what is going to fill me more (and its better for me!).

So it's going well. My first goal is 200 pounds, so another 20 pounds and Ill be there. There are times when I get frustrated because it's not coming off as fast as I'd like but I feel rewarded when I finally see that progress is still happening. Thanks again for your prayers and support!

UPDATE: In case anyone is interested in exactly what I'm doing. I limit myself to 1800 calories a day and exercise at least 30 minutes, usually on a stationary bike. If all goes well throughout the day, I net about 1200 calories which is just what the body needs. I've typically seen 2 to 3 pounds a week of loss which is considered a very healthy amount of loss.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

When I took that quiz it was early in the afternoon and I've since returned home and had time to think about it.

I'm such a hodgepodge of faith backgrounds that I don't think any particular "movement" would accept me. I've "grown up" in the Restoration Movement and even went to one of their colleges. I've since moved on from a lot of their traditional doctrines and would probably be ousted from the movement if they knew where I stood on some of the issues (although I still stand on their basic premise that we should restore church and should not consider ourselves the 'only Christians').

Anyways, I have no idea how I've come to my current standing on doctrinal issues. I read a lot, both of those I agree with and disagree with. I'm not a HUGE fan of Brian McLaren, but I do like a lot of what he has to say. I guess I could put it this way: I could spend the day with McLaren and the next with John MacArthur and be perfectly fine.

You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

It's been a great week in 'blog land' with several great posts from many different areas. I wanted to share with you some of the great ones from this week. Hopefully this is something I can continue to do each week.

"Once a Youth Pastor..." is a blog that recently got hit with a ton of traffic due to Marko talking about it in his post. It's about one youth pastor's exit from youth ministry because he felt God leading him somewhere else. His posts are great! It's all about why modern youth ministry isn't working and he raises great questions. Make sure you read this first! But make sure you make it over to The Piano Teacher part 1 and part 2.

Church Marketing Sucks is a great website for those that are looking for the more "commercial" side of our faith. It aims to equip leaders to be more effective in their outreach and media. Pretty good stuff! But this post on why Christian Living Sucks floored me! It's a must read! Here is a small snippet:

"Forget polishing up that web site, planning your next series or training your greeters. Because if we can't effectively live the gospel, how can we hope to communicate it?"

One of the hardest things to do in our lives as disciples is to surrender. RETHINKING YOUTH MINISTRY has posted about this very subject with a great prayer written by Charles de Foucauld. Simply beautiful prayer that I aim to keep with me.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Jeremy Zach is having a great conversation on the topic of homosexuality and the church and what is to be our response to homosexuals in the church. I point you in that direction to take part in the conversation.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Many will remember back in the 90's when the big "Purpose Driven Church" movements came into existence. At the time I was a clueless 15 year old who just kind of went along with it all, but I did remember that we were challenged by our youth pastor to memorize our "Mission Statement". In fact, we were expected to know it at a moments notice and could even win $1 if we asked a leader to recite it and they didn't know it.

I never did memorize it...it was like a paragraph long. But I DO remember the key words: Reach, Connect, Grow and Discover! I never read Purpose Driven Church or Purpose Driven Youth Ministry. I guess I just dislike program oriented churches.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet with some individuals that I know and trust and laid out all the challenges that we are facing in our student ministry. I drove home with the conclusion that we just flat out lack a vision.

Vision is different than a purpose statement.

Vision is a matter of the heart. Purpose is a product of the mind.

You can have the greatest purpose statement in the world that is short, quick, easy to memorize and even say a lot about your organization, but if it lacks vision it's just a lot of words on paper. Vision is what drives people, not purpose. Let me give an example from a mission statement I found (and actually happen to like):

" Youth Ministry is a church wide ministry which strives to provide a variety of opportunities and experiences to draw teens into active, responsible participation in the life, mission and work of the faith community and the greater church."

I like this because it has vision! You can sense that the person(s) who wrote this, had a wide view of what a church ministry should look like. Two years ago, I had a vision. Today it's been twisted and misguided into every day pressures and influences. I would like to make a stop to that and regain the vision I once had.